Historical Approaches to studying the themes of 'Society' and 'Economy'

As a group of historians who study ‘society’, anthropologists work on the use of mass-observation, particularly via participant-observation. During the 20th Century, most cultural and social anthropologists turned to the crafting of ethnographies [a piece of writing about a people at a particular place or time] in order to make their studies slightly more coherent and reliable. In their study of society, anthropologists use both quantitative and qualitative methods to enable them to establish any patterns that emerge; a way of studying that is also used by economic historians. In his article discussing ‘The Challenge of Affluence’, Avner Offer clearly and coherently brings together the notion (in qualitative terms) that society and economy are historically linked with examples of weight gain in Britain and America from the 1960s onwards. Drawing on the proposal that “rising weight can be seen as the outcome of rational consumer choice”, Offer continues to point out the effects that weight gain has on society and discusses the effects that this has on physcological ‘self-control’.

However, whilst historians also use similar approaches to study the economy, “Social anthropology is distinguished from subjects such as economics by its holistic range and the attention it gives to the diversity of culture and society across the world”. What has become clear, especially during the twentieth century, is that the study of society has become increasingly important to academic historians (in particular, sociologists). From the mid-twentieth century onwards, there has been an increasing tendency among academic historians to focus their studies upon issues of race, class and gender. This trend can be seen as a result of both the equal rights movements of the 1960s that worked to expose historical processes of oppression, and the emergence of new theoretical frameworks that focus upon humans' social identity. Most contemporary theories are largely influenced by the post-World War II intellectual movements of structuralism and post-structuralism, with these movements asserting human identity as the product of cultural and historical systems.

The notion of socially and historically constructed identities has a particular significance for contemporary academics engaged in the critical study of race. In their highly influential essay, "Racial Formation," Michael Omi and Howard Winant assert: "Although the concept of race invokes biologically based human characteristics, selection of these particular human features for purposes of racial signification is always necessarily a social and historical process." The influence of structuralism and post-structuralism on feminist and Marxist theorists has produced similar studies of the historical and social construction of gender and class differences as are common in discussions of race. Many contemporary theorists view ideas of masculinity and femininity as socially determined and as connected to the workings of power in society. Given the historical oppression of women and people of colour, it is often impossible for historians to speak of race and gender without addressing corresponding issues of class difference and economic inequality.

Alternatively, whilst it is important to look at the qualitative ways in which historians study these two perspectives, it is also vital for them to use quantitative measures. In doing so historians can gain a more insightful view as to the effects that these will have on history in general. Craig Muldrew demonstrates this clearly in discussing the amount of litigation brought to the courts in King’s Lynn during the seventeenth century. Using a clear range of qualitative data, Muldrew highlights the importance of trade within the society and gives clear indications as to the state of the economy during this period in time. What is also interesting to note in this article is that Muldrew is able to highlight the workings of society in an article which is predominantly based on the economy. Showing his data in a pie-chart, Muldrew gives an insight as to which different social groups were bringing litigation upon on another and suggests that the lower classes were bringing litigation upon their ‘betters’ stressing the fact that money does indeed play an important part in the workings of a society

Overall then, what has become obvious to historians the world over is that the skills needed to study the historical perspective of economy are nearly always applicable to the study of historical societies. Through the method of mass observation, historians can gain a broad sense of both perspectives, even before they are able to refine their research to make more accurate conclusions. One of the most obvious conclusions to come out of this topic is that the notions of society and economy are permanently linked meaning that it is impossible to talk about one without referring to and drawing evidence from the other. When looking at the economy in particular, it is clear to see that it has strong effects on society, whether these are in the sense of how affluent a society may be or how people interact with each other (as highlighted in Muldrew’s article). Whilst the different themes of society are studied by anthropologists and sociologists, it has become apparent that their fields of work often cross over with one another. Methods of mass-observation can be used for both perspectives in terms of ‘participant-observation’ and ‘sampling’, which although can implicate certain findings due to anomalies, can give historians the most representative data of what they are studying. Like the studiers of social-science, economists begin by looking at trends, “although this is more of a craft than an exact science”. When looking at quantitative studies of the economy, truly accurate notions of the economy just do not exist because data is always taken from a sample, with not all aspects following the same trends (causing data to often be confused). What is clear, however, is that with both perspectives being so confused in their actual definitions, it is almost always going to be certain that the two fields of study will cross over into the other making it nearly impossible not to use similar methods of studying them.

        

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